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Bygone (Index Alpha)
Plot Summary The newly rostered Green Team, commanded by Kenneth-139, have been chosen to carry out a sensitive asset denial mission. A strange distress call from interstellar space led to the rediscovery of a several centuries old Colony Ship, the ''Ambrosia Infinata. The derelict ship, now reeling from a close engagement between human scrappers and a Covenant scouting ship, has left ONI and it's Signals Corps worried that the navigational computers aboard the Infinita may lead to the discovery of Earth. Their mission set, Green Team is to insert, destroy the computers, and leave quietly as to bring no more attention to the craft. Their mission, however, takes a strange turn when it appears the ship is carrying something more than just old navdata...'' Section 1 1327 Hours, July 23, 2534 (Military Calendar)/ Onboard UNSC Prowler “Boudica”, Interstellar Space. Kenneth propped himself against the bulkhead of the Boudica as the ship exited Slip Space. The vessel lurched to its side as it slipped back into normal space, it’s gyroscopes fighting it’s prior momentum. As the ship's swaying slowed, Kenneth felt it accelerate and steady towards its new vector. Behind him, the other Spartans of Green Team had also braced themselves. Jorge, catching Kenneth’s rearward glance, nodded reassuringly—Kenneth promptly turned back and continued down the corridor to the bridge. His fledgling team fell in lockstep behind him. It had only been a few months since Green Team’s former team leader, Kurt, had been reassigned to Blue Team with John, the Master Chief. With an opening available, Kenneth was given a hand he could not help but lay on the table; he made sure John knew his desire to lead a team. Several times, by his own count. When it was all said and done, though, he was assigned to Green Team under Solomon’s leadership. The Chief chose another avenue. The lesson was learned, and he didn’t ask questions. He would move on. Fortune, however, was but a state of mind for Spartans and was hardly ever a consistent reality. Kenneth wouldn't chalk up the next series of events as fortune, not by a long shot. Not long after the proverbial deck was shuffled, Kurt was deemed MIA—a formality as he was presumed to be KIA after the accident. No one outside of the program could learn that the Spartans were all too human; they would remain myths. Honor intact, Kurt drifted off into the ethereal ether. Kenneth knew, however, that the reality was safely etched into the minds of his brothers and sisters. The idea that something as out-of-mind as an equipment malfunction could kill their brother wasn’t just uncanny, it was unfounded. They were Spartans; they got the hard jobs, the right equipment, and they seldom made mistakes. They—all of them—had been conscripted together for the SPARTAN-II program, and were more like siblings than comrades. Losing Kurt hit them as hard as it had been losing Sam. The grief the same, but the lesson different. John, seeing the need to move on quickly, dealt a set of new cards. Thus, Green Team was again reborn—Kenneth was in charge. He internally thanked John, and moved on. Celebration wasn't on any of their minds—there was no room for personal vanity. With the exception of one holdover, Malcolm, Green Team was a new squad—each Spartan, now, was from an entirely different fireteam with years of close teamwork to readjust to. Roles were up in the air, and they would need to learn about each other quickly. There would be growing pains, and he would need to ensure, above all else, that this never hindered them. The nagging issue, though, was that Kenneth was afraid he was getting cold feet. He had asked to lead, and he was given that chance. He had had the confidence to stick his neck out but, suddenly, he began to doubt that maybe he wouldn’t be able to lead a squad like he had imagined—would they trust his judgement? Military order or not, some Spartans were live wires—Malcolm could be one of them at times. Maybe he wasn’t cut out for all of this? Time would tell, and it would tell quickly. He would step down if need be. As the Spartan’s entered the bridge of the Boudica, Kenneth made his way to the captain before being intercepted by the ship’s Junior officer, Commander Jones. Kenneth snapped a salute, and Jones cautiously returned it. “The Captain’s busy with navigating the debris field, Spartan. I’ll give you your brief.” “Roger, Commander.” Kenneth caught his team sharing confused glances; Malcolm particularly made his opinion known with a slightly cocked head. With a quick twitch of his shoulder and a clenched fist, he signaled for them to keep themselves in check. They mutely complied. To the untrained eye of those on board the bridge, it wouldn’t have appeared as though the squad had just been carrying on a sort of conversation. The Spartans had their own language, and much of it never even included words. Kenneth simply appreciated they weren’t making a scene...an understandable one, anyway. The Commander touched a keypad on the bridge’s holo-table, and the wreckage of a large ship appeared among a dozen other small, destroyed freighter crafts. “Do we know anything about the larger ship, sir?” Malcolm directed his question to Jones. Jones leaned over the holo-table and sighed, before wiping his brow of sweat. “Well, Spartan, we think it’s a generation ship—privately owned, built, and operated. Took a couple minutes to pull up schematics since it’s so damn old…hundreds of years.” He waved his hand over the projection, and the shuttles disappeared. The holo-image focused in on the larger ship, and it's finer details became more comprehensible. At the front of the nearly kilometer long ship was a gigantic sphere, it’s radius about a third of the ship's length: an Enzmann class. The remainder of the ship was a simple series of cylinders with much of it’s exterior framework exposed—a common indicator of early interplanetary starships. The hull of the ship seemed to have been snapped—or cut—clear through just before the large, aft propulsion engines. The projection turned over, and it showed radar readings of a small Covenant dropship docked to the side of the vessel. Standard boarding craft; Type-28. It generally carried Five to Fifteen troops—nothing too difficult for a team of Spartans to handle. If, of course, they did it quickly. “Radiation in the area” Jones continued to explain, “seems to indicate the Covenant Frigate jumped out recently. Scanners also indicate it was venting something important. Seems like the Scrappers that popped off the distress signal miraculously damaged it enough for it to pull away for repairs. It was probably a small vessel." Jones laughed unconvincingly before continuing to explain the mission parameters, "The Covenant must have left the dropship behind in a hurry, so... They’ll probably be back.” Jones stood up straight and grabbed hold of a brace-rail as the ship veered slightly, dodging a large section of errant hull plating. He brushed off his uniform then readdressed the Spartans. “The mission is simple,” he sternly grumbled “board the ship, destroy all navigational data on the craft, and get out. If the mothership comes back,” he indicated to the dropship attached to the hull, “we don’t want them finding anything important. Make them think this was an empty hunk of metal, and nothing more. Understood?” “Aye, aye, Commander.” Kenneth snapped to attention, “We’re ready.” He glanced to his team, and they all nodded in agreement. ---- As the ventral bay of the Boudica opened, Green Team demagnetized their boots and pushed off towards the hull of the large ship. Immediately, the Boudica sped off on another vector to avoid detection, leaving the four Spartans to do what they did best. “Hull is 500 meters out,” Maria chimed on their TEAMCOM “...closing at five meters per second. Rendezvous clock should now be on your HUD.” Jorge and Kenneth pinged back acknowledgement. Kenneth picked up where she left off. “Charge your weapons now—motion tracker won’t catch movement through that plating. We want to be ready if any Covenant are still aboard.” Maria and Jorge pinged acknowledgements. So far, so good. After a minute of gentle gliding, they all tucked their knees inward to position their boots towards the fast approaching hull. Kenneth noted the derelict ship looked worse up close, with most of its outer hull appearing to warp, bend, buckle. As they came even closer, he could see that it's panel seams didn’t create perfect seals. At first he assumed it was simple shoddy workmanship, but recalled his lessons in colonization history. This ship was likely bought dirt cheap without proper radiation shielding. The flimsy outer hull was not for supporting weight, but preventing the inhabitants from becoming riddled with cancer. Conclusion: their rendezvous with the shielding might be rough. “Brace, brace, brace.” Kenneth called out. Maria and Jorge again returned their acknowledgement. Malcolm, however, had failed to do so again. They were small acts of defiance, so Kenneth brushed it off. During that last few meters of “descent”, the Spartan's Mark IV Mjolnir combat armor automatically used their boot magnets to repulse, slowing their glide to a sturdy two meters per second before hitting the ship’s hull with a dull clang which reverberated through their suits, and hummed in their ears before the gel-layer muffled it away as quick as it came. The armor had eased their landing for them, but the force of their heavy frames buckled the hull panels they landed—Malcolm’s foothold immediately collapsed on impact and he disappeared beneath the outer hull. “Status!” Kenneth bellowed to the squad. Jorge and Maria both gingerly straddled the hole, and peered inside. Jorge signaled a thumbs up to Kurt. Malcolm was fine. “Sorry, sir—made us an entrance, though.” Malcolm achingly radioed the group. “Watch your footing, Green Team—the hull isn’t designed for us.” Kenneth warned, as if they didn’t already know they were half-ton hulks. He saw three green lights ping him in acknowledgment on his heads up display. Progress. Kenneth joined Jorge and Maria at Malcolm’s makeshift entrance. Jorge, the largest of the group, stood almost a full head over Maria, who carried a standard MA5C rifle, much like Kenneth. Jorge, though, had opted to be their auto-gunner for their mission; his preferred role. But, unlike his usual modified M247, a large machine gun he toted about with admirable ease, he begrudgingly grabbed a lighter and more compact SAW after Kenneth encouraged him to take a “lighter-than-usual” loadout. Kenneth imagined he might be silently thanking him now, as he would have easily sheared through the radiation shielding with his added weight—he was lucky he was standing at all as a frame had buckled under the brunt of his initial contact, but held. Jorge “hopped” into the hole after Malcolm, and his wide shoulders caught the side. He tumbled over and was pulled to the ship’s deck. His gun, knocked off his back magmount, clattered off and down the hull. It silently drifted away, out of reach. “Goddammit!” he cursed over their COM, “Couldn’t a’ rolled out the carpet a little better for me, Mal?” “That’s what you get from scab work, Jorge… here.” Malcolm detached one of his SMG’s from his leg, and gestured for Jorge to take. Jorge reached out and snatched it from Malcolm’s hands—a tinge of embarrassment in his body language. Maria shot Kenneth a glance through her unpolarized visor and gave him an amused smile before hugging her rifle close to her torso and disappearing into the hole. Kenneth took her lead, held his rifle close, and jumped in after them, his magnetic field pulling him gently downward. The deck which Malcolm had crashed into was an access deck designed to be walked along during EVA; it was mostly scaffolding and some sporadic exterior wiring. To one side of the trench-corridor was the exterior framework which held the thin, sporadic hull plating they had landed on. To the other side was the real hull, complete with light meteorite resistant plate and sporadic portholes through which to view EVA work. The scaffolding was still in the vacuum of space, though, so when the team had gathered together, Kenneth reviewed the ship’s schematic to find an entrance. “This trench appears to end at an airlock.” Kenneth said, displaying the schematic to his team's HUD’s, “After that, it should be a relatively straight shot to the bridge. Let’s move.” He waved for the team to form up and stay alert, and they began to carefully move down the maintenance causeway, ensuring their feet magnetized to the deck as they moved. As they passed the observation port-holes, they took periodic glimpses inside. The ship appeared to be completely dark, powered down, and devoid of any movement—natural or artificial. With the exception of the occasional floating debris, the corridor they were moving parallel to was visually empty. “Sir,” Jorge eventually broke their tactical silence, “have you ever read about these older Generation ships?” “Not much, but I've seen the vids on Body Snatchers, though.” “Yeah, that’s right…” They were silent again until Maria chimed in. “We weren’t briefed on what happens if we find people on this rig, Chief.” Kenneth let that thought bounce back and forth a bit. “If we find anything, we’ll report it. For now, we’ll assume that the only thing that’s likely alive in there is a Covie running low on atmosphere.” “Aye, sir.” They replied in unison. Kenneth internally admitted they had a point. Many Generation Ships, as they had been called, had set out to colonize the stars before slip space transport had been discovered. After the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine was invented, though, a lot were approached decades afterwards by the fledgling UNSC and invited back into society. It was pretty common knowledge that none of the ships that were “discovered” had turned down their offer, considering how pointless it would be to wait hundreds, if not thousands of years to reach a planet that was now reachable in a few weeks or months. But, not every Generation ship was registered or carried beacons. Some, particularly those of a religious nature or, say, full of Neo-Koslovics...they intended not to be found. They had decided to remain unseen, and simply would wait for their paradise without knowing any better. It was a somewhat interesting conundrum that Kenneth was thankful someone else had to figure out. And then, as Kenneth had brought up, there were the Body Snatchers. Famously, in prior decades, “Cryo-Slaves” had begun to appear on the Black-Market. Simply put, they were captured colonists suspended in cryo sleep, which were sold as physical or sexual laborers. It was a rare occurrence, but it was an occurrence. As Green Team approached the airlock at the end of the corridor, Maria signaled for the group to halt. They all took a knee, and trained their weapons on the door. “I caught a blip of movement—beyond the hull.” She indicated to a point beyond the bulkhead in front of them. Jorge, signaled to Malcolm to set a charge on the door. “If they’re in there,” he looked to Kenneth, “they’re about to have a bad day.” He pulled a grenade from his belt, and looked to Kenneth. “Plan, sir?” “Yours is good. We breach, wait for the grenade, then pile in. I’ll take point.” All of them pinged acknowledgements to his HUD. Malcolm pulled a small, adhesive breaching charge from his soft case, and adhered it onto the seal of the airlock. He indicated for them to back up. “Small charge—should only blow the seal. Jorge? When it goes, help me pry it open, eh?” “Roger.” Jorge obliged. Malcolm and Jorge stood to either side of the door, as Maria and Kenneth stood back, training their crosshairs towards the door. Malcolm pulled his detonator from his side, and held up his hand, holding up five fingers. Then four. Three… A white flash, followed by a muffled thump. The damaged door's hydraulic seal was broken, and immediately Malcolm began to pull one half of the sliding doors for Jorge. Jorge tossed in the grenade, and another flash dimmed their HUD. Jorge reached out, and pulled back the adjacent sliding door, and Kenneth and Maria swiftly lunged through the new portal. Immediately inside, a dead Jackal floated limply off the ground, it’s legs and torso torn apart from the shrapnel. Kenneth swept his rifle hard to his left, and caught another injured Jackal still blinded by the flash-frag. He tapped a round into its visor and it’s face burst—a mist of purple blood jettisoned up as it’s suit decompressed. A blob of blood hung lazily in the air as the Jackal’s corpse began to float lifelessly backwards. Maria bounded by him, and glanced into the long cylindrical hallway extending the length of the ship. “VISR shows sector clear.” She shared. “Motion sensors still clear as well, sir.” Jorge added. “No secondaries—charge was clean.” Malcolm reported. Kenneth thought of the diagram for the ship, and his Mjolnir armor brought it up on his HUD; he shared it among the squad. A blue line mapped it’s way down the corridor for a stretch before jostling at an abrupt right angle towards an inner-room. The schematic labelled it as “The Bridge”. Kenneth created an augmented reality waypoint for the squad, and then stepped out into the corridor with his rifle aimed downrange. “The bridge is close; only a short walk down this way. Weapons free; shoot first, questions later.” Green Team acknowledged and Kenneth took point down the hall. As they saw from outside, scattered debris and particulate hung in the air. Larger containers and barrels also freely floated, but most had long since settled—the Jackals hadn’t been this way, Kenneth assumed. He estimated they entered where the ship had been cut, and had since been working their way up the corridor. Malcolm seemed to read Kenneth’s mind. “Think this portal’s going to be clear, Chief—nothing’s been here in a long time…” “There’s several other access corridors, Spartan; the Tick wasn’t docked on this column.” Maria interjected. Kenneth signaled for them to cut their chatter. “We assume the bridge is hot, and that we’re moments from contact. Don’t get sleepy on me, team.” “Aye, Chief.” Malcolm replied apologetically. Kenneth was starting to feel comfortable. The team dynamic was beginning to settle, and their roles becoming more clear. This would be paramount for them going forward—there was still work to be done, battles to be fought, and a war to be won. The Spartans didn’t have time for shake ups, and they all appeared to understand this well. Kenneth’s motion tracker flickered. “Contacts; other side of the bulkhead.” He called out. They all instinctively killed their lights. The team had just arrived at the door to the bridge, and the door was cracked open enough for a single person to squeeze through—but not quickly, and not for a Spartan. The door was shorter than all of them, and they would have to pull the door back to clear their path. Kenneth pulled out a fiber optic probe and snaked it around the corner to observe what was happening on the other side. Inside was a small Covenant boarding team. Two Grunt minors were clawing at the floor and squabbling back and forth. They appeared very unaware of the unmistakable shape of a Brute standing over them, arms folded. Eventually, the Brute appeared to lose patience and swatted one of the Grunts in the head—knocking it to the floor. Kenneth pulled the probe back, and then signaled to the team what he saw. Maria took hold of one of the doors, and Jorge stacked behind Kenneth. Malcolm, flash-frag in hand, held up his hand indicating five...four— Malcolm flung the grenade through the crack in a side-armed motion, twisting to take cover on the opposite side of the door as he moved. Kenneth watched the grenade sail weightlessly right into the Brute before he ducked his head back. There was a flash, and they felt the sharp bang reverb through the floor; settled dust stirred up off the walls and deck creating a faint cloud. Maria pulled hard and the door buckled outward under her strength. Kenneth, knowing where the Brute was, turned the corner firing. The Brute was already choking after its mask had been blown off by Malcolm's flash-flag. Kenneth’s quick burst hit the Brute’s thick skull and it split and fragmented into a mess of bone and brain. Jorge vaulted over a console, and expertly double-tapped each Grunt in its chest. They were already on the floor lifeless, but he was assuring they never got back up. Turning your back on an injured Grunt was as much a death sentence as an angry Brute. Quickly the team cleared the rest of cylindrical room, and began searching for the Navigation console. Malcolm found it quickly, and he and Maria began to dismantle and fry the components inside. Jorge checked the Brute corpse; nothing indicated it had gotten a message out before Green Team stormed the bridge, so they were likely in the clear. They would continue to move fast, but there didn’t appear to be any reason to rush their work. Kenneth made sure to check and clear outside each of the doors leading from the Bridge to the access tubes that made up the internal hallways. Everything on the interior of the ship was cylindrical as vessels from it’s era hadn’t yet utilized artificial gravity at a larger scale. The only “gravity” on this ship would come in the form of constant propulsion at certain impulses. Kenneth turned back, satisfied with their security, and Jorge promptly waved him over. Kenneth pushed off the floor and floated back to the bridge console cluster. “There’s a hatch here, Chief. Locked tight—looks like the Grunts were clawing at it a bit.” Kenneth inspected the dents in the locking mechanism, and plasma scorches. Beneath the hatch would be another “floor” or section of the habitation modules. But, being in such close proximity to the bridge... “Let’s cut it open.” Kenneth responded. “Sir?” Jorge responded quizzingly. “If it’s this close to the bridge, it may contain backup navigation, or a second set of terminals. We want to be sure nothing is left to chance. We can't be complacent when Earth's location is on the line.” “Roger...I have a thermite charge—should do the trick.” As Jorge set up the thermite, Malcolm and Maria finished their sweeps of the consoles. They concluded the recovery of the ships navigation data by blasting each one the remaining consoles with a microwave emitter frying the remaining components. As they circled back around the room, Jorge gave Kenneth a thumbs up indicating they were ready to go. “Light it.” In a moment, the canister of thermite became red hot and molten metal began to bubble from the sides of the locking mechanism. After a minute, Jorge knocked the canister off, and it revealed the locking mechanism had been turned to slag. He yanked hard and the hatch flew open with ease. As he stuck his head over the side, he abruptly bent back out as a hail of bullets pinged off the top of his helmet. “Found our scrappers, sir!” “Numbers, Jorge!” Kenneth ordered. “Two! And they’re floating about. Flash should subdue ‘em!” “Alright, Green Team,” Kenneth instructed, “I want these guys alive if we can—I’d rather the Covies don’t find remnants of a two way gun fight. Malcolm:” he pointed to the Spartan, “toss in your last flash-frag and we’ll go in and grab them.” Malcolm nodded, and primed has last grenade, waiting for Kenneth’s instruction. Kenneth nodded, and Malcom tossed it in. When the hatch flashed, the two grabbed the edge of the hatch and dove in. Inside were two general purpose atmosphere suits writhing about as they shielded their eyes. Kenneth grabbed the first one by his rifle, and snapped their arm back before grabbing their torso to immobilize them. Malcolm’s target dropped their pistol when the grenade went off, and he simply tackled that scrapper into the rear bulkhead, and pinned them without crushing them too much. It was only when the two stopped struggling, that Kenneth began to take in the room. All around them were cryo-tubes. In some manner or another, each tube had been damaged and was either empty, or the individual inside long dead. None had power...with the exception of one. Just behind Kenneth, a small green-blue light glowed inside the tube as the diodes struggled to heat up, flickering as they did. As he turned all the way around, his heart nearly fell to the pit of his stomach. Behind the plexiglass, a small, amber-headed girl stared back at him—terrified, but very much alive. “Toss ‘em up, Chief!” Maria called down. Kenneth pushed his scrapper upwards angrily. “Don’t feel the need to be gentle with them, you two. Bastards had their eye on something down here…” Malcolm came to Kenneth's side and paused only a moment before he began checking the control panels on the cryo-tube, getting diagnostics on it’s systems. “We’ve got a live one down here, you guys. A girl in a cryo-tube.” “A what’s in the what?!” Jorge cursed. Malcolm looked to Kenneth, and signaled a neutral expression across his visor. Kenneth frowned. “Tubes on battery backup.” Malcolm explained, “She’s probably got a few hours of juice left, but, after that…” he shook his head and cursed “Damn! The ship was probably powered by the engine fusion—if we didn’t check in here...”. Kenneth looked again to the girl. They couldn’t communicate directly, but he wanted to reassure her as best as he could. She held her hand up over her eyes—she likely caught part of the flash. He thought for a moment how to communicate with the child, as Maria floated down next to him. Jorge kept watch on the scrappers, and from the looks of it listened to Kenneth’s suggestion, possibly breaking another arm in the process. “Depolarize your visors, Spartans. Let her know we’re human.” They did. The girl’s eyes, adjusting again to the light of the room, darted from face to face, still unsure, and likely very, very confused. She shook, and shook, and shook. Kenneth stepped forward and took a knee to be at the girl’s eye level. He began to talk deliberately, hoping she spoke English and could read lips. “Hello!” he waved. The girl looked on uneasily. “''My. Name.” he pointed to his breastplate, where the number ''139 had been painted in matte white and repeated “My. Name...Your name?” He looked and pointed to her exaggeratedly, hoping she caught some of what he was trying to say. The girl was hesitant, but was more calm than before—but she was still shaking violently. He could just make out the frozen sweat on her face through the frost on the cryo-tube. She was awfully cold from a botched wake up cycle—he estimated she might die from hypothermia before she ran out of air. If they didn’t get her out quick, she was doomed. Suddenly, the girl reached out her hand and placed it against the glass. A hand print appeared in the frost where it had been; she still had some body heat. Kenneth felt better about the time they had. He nodded to her reassuringly, and she reached out again. Carefully, she spelled her name slowly in reverse so that the Spartans could read it. ANNALEE ---- 0630 Hours, January 9th, 2546 (Military Calendar)/ Reach Naval Officers Academy Kenneth stood at attention behind the desk of Admiral Ulster Turner, Superintendent of Reach’s Naval Officer Academy. Not far from here, decades ago, he trained to be the Spartan he had become. Today, though, he wasn’t there to train—he was there strictly on business, a rare leave awarded to a constantly raging warrior. But, in a way, this had been more than business, it was a bit of a reunion. Before him, and nearly as tall as him, was an fair-skinned, amber haired woman whose face he could not forget. After all these years apart, he could still see clearly the girl with the frozen tears. If she was surprised to see him there, he was just as surprised to see what she had become: she was a new breed of Spartan. He had initially been overtaken by a tingling sense of pride, almost as if he had some direct means to have made her transformation happen. But, he knew quickly the woman before him was much more than the brave girl from all those years ago. The scar above her left eye was fresh, and her face pocked with specks of debris. A burst helmet, he speculated. She had already seen real combat, and survived the rigors of augmentation. He had nothing to do with who she became—that was her own doing. It was strange that anyone would have known the significance Annalee and Kenneth would have had for one another. Someone, somewhere had connected the dots. He couldn’t know for sure, but the strangely anonymous Rear Admiral who signed his order to attend was a “Darren Cohen”. He had known only one Darren, and they washed out of the Spartan program a long time ago, and went...well, that was the thing. He and his Spartan comrades never saw him again. He could only speculate, but it would be hard to imagine someone with Darren’s will leaving service, even if they were crippled. Several crippled Spartans had transferred to ONI, but the fate of all of them was uncertain. But, he also considered how improbable it would be for someone so young to become a Rear Admiral. He didn’t think much more of it, as he knew he would likely never know. As ceremonies were, the shotgun Graduation was short and simple—very military. Annalee was given her set of bars, and Turner said a few words. Then, as quickly as she had arrived, it was over. Turner saluted, shook her hand, and he led her and Kenneth to the door. Kenneth, a Chief Petty Officer, looked to the newly pinned bars on Annalee’s collar and smirked. He saluted. “Officer on deck!” She smiled. “At ease, Spartan.” He took off his cap, and shook his head. “If I had known they would make you a Spartan, I might have left you on that ship, ma’am.” “I’m happy you didn’t.” She replied. She was hard to read, much like many Spartans, but he could tell she believed what she said. Whatever she had gone through to get where she was, to her she felt as if it had been worth it. He relaxed. “Well, let me feel a little guilty, huh?” he turned and walked with her as they both made their way to the foyer exiting to the campus. She kept her faint smile their entire walk. He took an interest in the status of the S-III’s, and she refused to tell him how many of her class there were when he asked. He in turn, refused to tell her about the S-II’s. They both chuckled about it—when everything about each other was classified, they found it hard to find common ground. But, their walk was short, and their destinations different. When they reached the doors, Kenneth stopped, and turned to Annalee. “Well, Lieutenant, this is where I get off.” She nodded. “I never said thank you, Chief.” “You don’t have to.” “I do, ” She sternly and forcefully responded. “I haven’t had much choice in my life, but this is my cause, now. And it’s one worth fighting for.” She looked off to the central courtyard beyond the glass. Yellow leaves swirled about the grass outside, and they watched them blow in the gentle breeze together. “So...thank you. “Another soldier might have left me in that room. You were diligent. You saved me from a fate I can’t even imagine. I don’t think I could ever explain entirely what it means to me.” He nodded, and returned his cap to his head. “Think nothing of it, Spartan.” He saluted, and made his way down towards the underground Maglev. He wasn’t one for goodbyes. He didn’t know how to say it without regretting it later. So, he left on what he imagined would be the best the goodbye would get. “Chief.” her voice called after Kenneth. He turned. Annalee stood, and with her index finger, drew a smile across her face. He couldn’t have hidden his grin if he had wanted to. ---- [[Index_Alpha|'Return to Mother Article']] ---- Category:Stories Category:Short stories